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Ontario trades get own regulatory college

Ontario leads way in giving skilled trades a regulatory body to govern their own, just like doctors, teachers and lawyers.

Ron Johnson, chair of the board of directors at the new Ontario College of Trades, stands in the main training hall where students will learn drywalling. The training facility is run with the input of unions and contractors. (Chris So / The Toronto Star)

By Louise BrownEducation Reporter

Wed., July 11, 2012

They’re the people who make a living at Ontario’s 157 skilled trades: carpenters and plumbers and hairdressers and chefs and the folks who run the construction cranes that are changing Toronto’s skyline.

And Ontario is the first place in North America — maybe beyond — to give them their own fancy regulatory college so they can govern and police their own, just like doctors and teachers and lawyers do.

But even before it opens in January 2013, the Ontario College of Trades has drawn fire from some workers who call its coming fees nothing short of a tax on trades. College officials argue the trades need an independent body to serve as quarterback in tackling Ontario’s urgent skills shortage.

“Ontario faces a shortfall of hundreds of thousands of workers by 2020 and we can’t bridge that gap by immigration alone, so one of our most important functions will be to promote the trades as a first career choice, not a fallback,” said Ron Johnson, chair of the college’s board of directors and deputy director of the Interior Systems Contractors’ Association and its training centre in Woodbridge.

“In every other jurisdiction, government is at the helm (over trades) so this is a rare opportunity for the trades to govern themselves,” Johnson said. “We’ll be more nimble than government at responding to the changing needs of industry, and enforcing credentials and keeping the illegal workers off the street.

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“It’s a revolutionary way to manage the trades and the world is watching, so we need to succeed.”

If all the nearly 700,000 skilled trades workers join, it will be the largest of the province’s 45 regulatory colleges. Starting off, however, membership will be mandatory for only the 150,000 who work in the 22 trades in which certification is compulsory, such as electricians, auto mechanics and sheet metal workers.

The college, which will have enforcement and disciplinary powers, will offer the public a place to turn to complain about service or to search for a local tradesperson or find out whether a contractor has ever been disciplined for an infraction.

In preparation for opening, college staff gathered input on proposed yearly fees of $50 to $100 for an apprentice or tradesworker and $100 to $200 for a journeyperson (certified tradesperson). They say these are lower than the fees for any other Ontario regulatory college.

It also proposed fees of $100 to $200 for a company with up to five employees, $200 to $400 for contractors with up to 50 employees and as much as $600 for companies with more than 50 employees. The college board will vote on the fees in August or September.

Reid said he fears the college will make certification compulsory for more trades, possibly carpentry, for example, “and the last thing the construction industry needs is another barrier to entering. The college will kill jobs, and the timing is essentially wrong when we’re encouraging more young people to enter the trades.”

Johnson calls Reid’s $84-million figure “pie in the sky.”

“Our budget this year is just $17 million, and next year will be a bit more than $20 million,” he said.

In the meantime, the Ontario General Contractors’ Association, representing largely non-residential building companies, has launched a letter-writing campaign to persuade Queen’s Park to scrap the college.

But government officials insist the college will stay.

Johnson said the college wants to help people realize how much money you can make in the trades.

“The average carpenter makes more than $70,000 a year and a drywall installer can earn up to $51 an hour including benefits,” he said. “Good pay, good job prospects, good pension and you graduate with no student debt because you earn money while you learn.

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